SpaceDev, a commercial space exploration and development company, has announced that
Jan King, W3GEY, has joined the company as Vice President for Space Engineering. Jan has a
distinguished record within the small satellite and launch vehicle communities with more
than 30 years of experience. During this time he was associated with the design and
development of 17 small spacecraft and nine larger spacecraft, as well as one launch
vehicle.

"It is people who make a company successful, and in Jan King we have a true expert
in designing and overseeing the development of low cost spacecraft. Jan has that rare
combination of hands-on experience coupled with many years of innovative approaches to
getting the job done, from small satellites to large spacecraft to launch vehicles,"
said Jim Benson, SpaceDev President and Chairman.

Most recently, W3GEY has been a Schriever Chair Professor in the Department of
Astronautics, United States Air Force Academy, where he organized and managed the
technical portion of the small satellite program.

As a Vice President of Technology at Qualcomm, he developed, organized and conducted
system level functional tests of the Globalstar communications transponder sub-system,
which verified the overall Globalstar system traffic capacity.

Previous to his position at Qualcomm, Jan was Vice President of the Boulder Operations
for Orbital Sciences Corporation. He was an original member of the Pegasus launch vehicle
team and of the Orbcomm spacecraft development team. In 1991, W3GEY was the co-recipient
of the National Technology Medal, presented to him by President George Bush. At the
request of the Department of State, Jan also served as a member of the United States
delegation to the 1987 Mobile World Administrative Radio Conference.

Between 1968 and 1980, Jan was an Aerospace Technologist employed by NASA at the
Goddard Space Flight Center. He worked in the Test and Evaluation Division, the
Communications and Navigation Divisions and the Delta Launch Vehicle Project Office.

W3GEY was a co-founder of the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) in
Washington, DC, also serving on the AMSAT Board of Directors. He was project manager for a
series of 12 small satellites, currently advising AMSAT on current and future small
satellite projects.

"Jan King's combination of AMSAT experience, large corporation business experience
and Air Force Academy teaching uniquely qualify him to instill a low cost, hands-on
culture throughout our Space Mission Division. His years of experience should increase our
ability to perform missions in both near Earth and deep space," added
Mr. Benson.

SpaceDev intends to launch the first privately financed spacecraft to land on another
planetary body.

[ANS thanks Jim Benson, SpaceDev President and Chairman and the SpaceDev
Corporation for this information]

A cadre of international astronaut candidates has arrived at NASA's Johnson Space
Center in Houston, Texas to begin training as members of the 1998 Astronaut Class.

The international candidates, from Brazil, Canada, France, Germany and Italy will train
as mission specialists for future Space Shuttle flights, and, more importantly, for
International Space Station flight assignments.

"The Class of 1998 continues our international cooperation in space as we begin
assembly of the International Space Station," said NASA's David Leestma, director of
Flight Crew Operations. "We welcome our international astronauts and the entire
class. They have a lot of work and a very exciting time ahead of them."

The international candidates are: Leopold Eyharts, Paolo Nespoli, Hans Schlegel and
Roberto Vittori, representing the European Space Agency; Bjarni Tryggvason, from the
Canadian Space Agency; and Marcos Pontes, representing the Brazilian Space Agency.

Guatemala's national ham radio society is telling its government and its people to give
hams back their UHF and SHF bands. Unfortunately, it appears the Guatemalan
telecommunications regulators are turning a deaf ear to that nations Amateur Radio
community.

As previously reported by ANS, Newsline and the ARRL, the Guatemala Congress
reallocated almost half of all the UHF and SHF frequencies used by amateurs in Guatemala.
The action included a formerly shared allocation from 430 to 440 MHz and all SHF
bands. The spectrum was sold to commercial land mobile stations, with some of those
stations now operating in the 70-centimeter ham radio band.

The Club de Radioaficionados de Guatemal has issued what it terms as a call to the
Guatemalan public conscience as part of its effort to get the government to restore ham
radio access to these bands. The club has also presented a formal request to the
Guatemalan Ministry of Communications.

Satellite operators in North and South America have noticed increased interference to
several Amateur Radio satellites, most notably AO-27.

[ANS thanks the Radio Club of Guatemala, Newsline and the ARRL for this
information]

Phase 3D Project Manager and AMSAT-DL President Karl Meinzer, DJ4ZC, recently gave
his final approval to the Phase 3D transponder frequencies. The complete table of uplink,
downlink and telemetry beacon frequencies is available at the following URL: http://www.aball.de/~pg/amsat/p3dqrg.html. [Update 8 Oct 1998: now
http://www.amsat-dl.org/p3dqrg.html.]
--AMSAT-BB

Bruce, KK5DO, reports there is a good possibility that the Houston AMSAT Net will be
moving to a C-Band satellite (SpaceNet 4). KK5DO would like to hear from amateurs who
are presently listening to the net via the Ku-Band satellite, those that cannot listen to
the satellite feed because they only have C-Band and anyone who would be better served by
the proposed C-Band satellite change. Contact Bruce at kk5do@amsat.org.--AMSAT-BB

Andy, W5ACM, reports information from the South Texas Balloon Launch Team and the
successful flight of BLT-13 is available at the following URL: http://www.flash.net/~hmac/blt. The site
includes photographs taken from the balloon during the flight.--W5ACM

George, W1ME, conducted a satellite demonstration at the New England Division Convention
in Boxboro, Massachusetts with retransmission of AO-27 passes on the local repeater. W1ME
and crew also represented AMSAT-NA with a table and forum. George reports help is needed
for an AMSAT presence at the September 19th Central Vermont ARC Hamfest, the Rhode Island
Amateur FM Repeater Service get-together, the September 26-27th Moose Swappers
Hamfest in Lancaster, New Hampshire and the upcoming HOSSTRADERS show in Rochester.
Contact George for more information at w1me@amsat.org.--AMSAT-BB

The first component of the International Space Station, the Zarya Control Module, is
scheduled to be launched from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on
November 20th.--NASA, ESA

The Vicksburg Amateur Radio Club is in the process of restoring their digipeater to full
operation, in anticipation of heavy usage during the upcoming AMSAT-NA Symposium in
Vicksburg. KB5HAV is working with WB4APR to accommodate APRS users. In addition, K5NRK
will be posting some GPS location information on the Symposium web site.--K5NRK

Photographs from the recent 1998 Eastern VHF-UHF Conference are available at the
following URL: http://www.qsl.net/vhfnews/photos.html.
Proceedings from the conference are in the process of being prepared for mailing. In 1999,
the conference will celebrate its 25th year by becoming an ARRL Operating Specialty
National Convention.--WZ1V

The European Space Agency's ERS-1 and ERS-2 satellites (orbiting at an altitude of 780
km) have been used recently to view the floods in China. Their radar images are giving
invaluable help in forestalling and coping with the environmental threat to the area. A
follow-up satellite, ENVISAT, which is scheduled for launch in the year 2000, will
continue this style of mission. A color ERS image of the flooded area, southwest of Wuhan
on the Yangtze River, is available at the following URL: http://earth1.esrin.esa.it/ERS.--ESA

The PBBS is running a Kantronics KPC-9612 + V.8.1 TNC. The commands are similar to most
PBBS and BBS systems.

MIREX has announced an on going APRS School Days Test. MIREX is allowing schools to use
APRS for position and status reports via R0MIR. Non-school stations are asked to refrain
from using APRS type transmissions or beacons via R0MIR.

[ANS thanks Scott Avery, WA6LIE, and the MIREX team for Mir status information]

Wayne, N5WD, reports RS-12 has been switched into Mode KT, with a 15 meter
uplink and 10 meter and 2 meter downlinks. John, K6YK, reports "the
2 meter downlink is very loud and is easy copy compared to 10 meters. John also
reports is only takes low power on 15 meters to have an effective uplink signal.
"There seems to be a lot of high powered stations pumping the satellite receiver
AGC," said K6YK. Al, WC9C, also reports a strong VHF downlink from RS-12.

Stacey Mills, W4SM, reports another sleep phase appears to be beginning. "I
suspect that the rotational speed is so slow as to be incapable of holding a stable
attitude heading. Hence, we may be entering a time of chaotic useful periods and sleep
periods which cannot be predicted."

Stacey Mills, W4SM, has more information about the satellite at the following URL:

This means AO-27's transmitter turns on 18 minutes after entering the Sun and
stays on for 18 minutes. AO-27's transmitter is turned off at all other times during
the orbit. N4USI reminds stations that this happens on every orbit, approximately
14.2 times a day. The current TEPR settings will cause the satellite to be on during
the daytime at northern latitudes.

Kazu, JJ1WTK, tells ANS that OBC bit error investigation continues and the satellite
will remain in voice mode. FO-29 has entered a period of 'full illumination' by the Sun.
This illumination period will extend through the end of December.

In response to many requests for information about methods of decoding OSCAR-11
signals, a package of hardware information has been added to the satellite web site. The
site also contains some software for capturing data, decoding ASCII telemetry and WOD
information. The URL is http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/clivew/

The AO-16 command team has authorized an APRS experiment on AO-16 to explore the use of
the 1200-baud PACSAT for APRS position/status reporting. The test periods will run each
Tuesday from 0000 to 2359 UTC.

Miguel Menendez, EA1BCU reports LUSAT/Oscar 19 apparently stopped transmitting. Ground
control station LU8DYF has succeeded in regaining control. Downlink signals show good
modulation with an ASCII message containing the following text:

EA1BCU reminds operators the digipeater mode is "a very interesting option to make
contacts with other stations, or to be connected with your own station to evaluate the
on-line the state of your installation." Bob, WB4APR, says an efficient way to
communicate via a space digipeater is to use un-numbered UI frames, which require no
acknowledgment. This way several stations can talk all to each other.

Downlink 435.325 435.225 MHz
HDLC telemetry framed so a TNC in KISS mode will decode it

The TechSat-1B micro-satellite was successfully launched from the Russian Baikonur
Cosmodrome on July 10, 1998 and has now completed its first full week in space. The
satellite is expected to be available for general amateur use shortly.

The satellite does not have a continuous beacon, but does transmit a 9600-baud burst
every 30 seconds (for about 3 seconds in length), currently on 435.225 MHz.

The TechSat team has also constructed a new home page about the TechSat bird, and
promise they will add more information in the next few weeks. To view the new site, point
your web browser to: